White House delays decision on more Russia sanctions

WASHINGTON — The White House says a decision on new economic sanctions against Russia will be made soon — not committing to an announcement Monday that U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley had said to expect.

In a statement, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said: “We are considering additional sanctions on Russia and a decision will be made in the near future.”

Haley had said Sunday that new sanctions were coming against Russia for enabling the government of Syrian leader Bashar Assad to continue using chemical weapons. She said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin “will be announcing those on Monday, if he hasn’t already.” She said Russia has blocked six attempts by the U.N. Security Council to make it easier to investigate the use of chemical weapons.

“Everyone is going to feel it at this point,” Haley said, warning of consequences for Assad’s foreign allies. “The fact he was making this more normal and that Russia was covering this up, all that has got to stop.”

Haley made clear the United States won’t be pulling troops out of Syria right away, saying U.S. involvement there “is not done.”

Haley said the three U.S. goals for accomplishing its mission are making sure chemical weapons are not used in a way that could harm U.S. national interests, defeating the Islamic State group and having a good vantage point to watch what Iran is doing.

“We’re not going to leave until we know we’ve accomplished those things,” she said.

The nighttime assault on Syria was carefully limited to minimize civilian casualties and avoid direct conflict with Russia, but confusion arose over the extent to which Washington warned Moscow it was coming. The Pentagon said it gave no explicit warning. The U.S. ambassador in Moscow, John Huntsman, said in a video, “Before we took action, the United States communicated with” Russia to “reduce the danger of any Russian or civilian casualties.”

Russia has military forces, including air defenses, in several areas of Syria to support Assad in his long war against antigovernment rebels.